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the study of the Hving organisms, than from that of the organisms in hardened and 

 stained condition, I embrace the opportunity to offer the following remarks. 



De Beauchamp and I have quite independently of each other in opposite ways 

 tried to reach the same goals, a more correct understanding of the position of the Rotifera 

 in the animal kingdom and of the systematical relationship between the families. In 

 DE Beauchamp's work the centre of gravity unquestionably lies in the laboratory work, 

 in mine it is in Nature herself. The way which I have been forced to follow, is 

 determined by personal inclination and by my scientific position as the leader 

 of a biological laboratory situated in the midst of Nature far removed from the 

 large centres of culture. May I here insert the following remarks. 



The establishment of biological stations was, based upon the clear understanding 

 of the fact that in the long run the practice of carrNing out zoological and botanical stu- 

 dies to a greater and greater extent in large laboratories, situated in the large towns, 

 far away from living Nature was connected with great danger. When it has so 

 often been urged that so many of these laboratories, especially the freshwater bio- 

 logical laboratories, have not yielded the expected scientific results, this, apart from 

 man}' other causes, is also due to the fact, that they have not sufliciently marked 

 out the limits of their investigations, aiming sometimes too low and sometimes too 

 high, ^^'hat has been lacking is the cooperation between the two kinds of labora- 

 tories; what has augmented the difliculties of cooperation is on the one side the, 

 certainh' not always unfounded, want of respect for the studies from the freshwater 

 biological laboratories combined with too great a confidence in the exactness of the 

 scientific methods used in the town laboratories, and on the other side a lack of 

 power from the freshwater biological laboratories to carry out their investigations 

 in Nature herself, and an often rather unfortunate need to prepare and accomplish the 

 investigations in ways which only in a ver}' slight degree differ from those which 

 the great laboratories in the towns are forced to follow. 



Laboratorj' investigations, especially those relating to the biology, but partly 

 also those relating to the anatomy of animals, very often give one the impression 

 of being somewhat accidental both in regard to their plan and their results. The 

 reason for this must probably be sought in the fact that the observer unconsciously 

 works with the individual as an isolated element. He has great difficulty in main- 

 taining a clear perception of the organism as a link of a whole, transformed, and 

 influenced by the circumstances under which it lives, and in turn exercising a similar 

 influence on its surroundings. Laboratory studies may at any rate lead to results, 

 which dazzle bj' a seemingly far greater accuracj' than that which it is, as a rule, 

 possible to attain through studies in nature. It must, however, be borne in mind, 

 that these so-called accurate results are arrived at by methods of research, which 

 have their strength especially in their one-sidedness, but on account of this, they 

 have also hidden in them all the sources of erroneous inferences, which necessarih' 

 arise from all one-sided researches. For my own part I am ver}- often in doubt as 

 to how far this "accuracj'" in manj' cases is anything more than an illusion, and 



